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Beyond the Noise

I’m not a fan of the news.

Maybe it’s just me.

A decade ago, you had one anchor at one desk telling you what was going on locally, with a bit of international happenings.

Today, our phones beeps with whatever is breaking as it’s breaking, resulting in a bombardment of local and global information.

Our emotions end up the bullseye for all the calamity and potential calamity.

In a targeted digital age, click on one article on Putin and for the next couple of months you’ll get updated with all things Kremlin whether you’re interested or not.

Add in half a dozen other notifications and the peaceful existence we had a few decades ago has been replaced by our screens telling us why we should panic today.

We’re not the first generation to have terror in our peripheral vision.

Rewind two thousand years ago and one man found himself literally surrounded by impending doom.(1)

Ironically, this is the man Jesus named the rock.(2)

On this day, nothing in his behaviour was rock-like.

I do have to say, Peter is one of my favourite disciples. His faith was loud and his actions were louder. It was his follow through that had the tendency to fall apart.

Now viewed as a saint, Peter at 30 AD was about as human as they came.

In this particular story, Peter sees Jesus walking on the water and offers to join – pretty impressive faith at a glance.(3)

He gets the okay, gets out of the boat and starts to defy the laws of physics – more impressive.

Unlike his contemporaries, Peter didn’t think Jesus was a hallucination and fully believed that if Jesus said it, he could do it.

What he hadn’t reckoned with, was the reality of the waves.

Pause.

These waves weren’t calm and these winds were not gentle. Combine that with water and s human logic overrides the divine.

It happens to the best of us. You’re making impossible strides because your eyes are set on Jesus and then you stop, let in the surrounding noise and something in your brain tells you, you’re going to sink.

Peter noticed the wind, forgot the Saviour and started going down.(1)

I can relate.

I’m all for a sovereign God until the coldness of reality hits my face. In a world of tik tocks and YouTube shorts, the consistent news cycles do not help my faith.

Peter should have tuned out the noise and he would have made it.

He should have submitted his logic to his faith and he would have been fine.

I can’t tell that to Peter but I can tell that to me.

I can also tell me that when I buckle it doesn’t mean its over. In spite of Peter’s humanity, Jesus didn’t leave him to drown. (4)

He called out and the Saviour was there.

We’re in a fail-safe whirlpool.

Sometimes, we’re prey to the environment. Sometimes we’re prey to our logic.

None of it surprises God.

He has taken into account every failure and decided to help us anyway.

He can do that.

I can’t tell you why or how because that’s way above my pay grade; but Peter not drowning is prime example of grace.

What a relief.

1-Matt 14 v 30

2 Matt 16 v 18

3 Matt 14 v 28

4 Matt 14 v 31

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